


spes vincit thronum

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Doctor Abbie Mills, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Sick Ichabod Crane, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you're in pain, you take medicine. If you're sick, you take medicine."</p><p>Ichabod looked contemptuous. "We didn't have bottles of countless capsules for our ails, Miss Mills. A hot cup of tea with a generous amount of honey will suffice for me, I believe."</p><p>Abbie sighed. "Okay, whatever you say. I'll take delight in saying <i>I told you so </i>tomorrow," she teased, tucking her hair behind her ear.</p><p> </p><p>Abbie doesn't say <i>I told you so</i>.</p><p>[Sickfic.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	spes vincit thronum

Crane was nursing his third cup of coffee in ninety minutes.

"Might want to slow down there a little?" Abbie asked in amusement, tapping her pen against the files. "Not that I don't sympathize, but..."

Ichabod glanced up, licking his lips. "Beg pardon?"

"Coffee," Abbie pointed with the pen towards his coffee. "That's your third and I swear if you go off the walls, I'm sending you home."

Ichabod blinked lethargically - he looked a little tired, now that Abbie thought about it - before smiling, a little sheepishly. "I'm having trouble maintaining my focus today. It doesn't really... seem to be helping," he muttered, sitting the cup aside and flexing his fingers.

"Been there, done that," Abbie muttered, looking back at the paperwork. "Go home and get some sleep, I think I can manage myself."

"No, no. I'm quite capable for the time being. Direct me where those books you were hoping to find were?"

"Uh." Abbie looked up. "I think they were somewhere in the general... over there position," she said, waving her hand towards the book cases.

Ichabod clenched his hands into fists briefly. "Right." He nodded to himself and strode across the room.

　

 

By seven o' clock, Abbie had a feeling that there was something deeper going on than she knew about it. Not with her, not with the precinct or the supernatural world, but with Ichabod.

The coffee earlier was out of the ordinary for him. He was more naturally a tea person, patient enough to take time and painstaking care for a perfect cup. It wasn't something that Abbie was naturally invested in. She took her coffee, hot, with lots of sugar, and from whatever line was the shortest in the morning. But Crane always made tea when he needed the caffeine boost, only drinking coffee if they went to a shop where he could buy, as he called it ‘the expensive, fancy coffee with the foam’. But he'd been almost fixated on it this morning, even if he had followed it up with tea during the day. Besides the impending caffeine overdose (not really, but he did have a low tolerance for non-decaf coffee, Abbie had found out the hard way), it seemed to have accomplished very little. He looked sluggish all day, although he clearly tried to hide it.

He was lacklustre all day, and, from five onwards, had barely spoken a word to her asides from commenting on the text he was reading. Abbie didn't _notice_ , really, too wrapped up in her own paperwork and reading, but she noticed _now_ , giving him a ride back to the cabin that was only submerged in complete silence. She always wanted to kick on the radio, but something was holding her back. Adding insult to injury, perhaps.

"Tired?" she asked gently, glancing over.

"A little sluggish," Ichabod said quietly, not looking away from the window.

The nagging sensation didn't leave. He seemed unwilling to speak at all now, or to turn away from the window. Abbie tried to think back, had she done something, said something? Or was there something going on that she didn't know about?

She sighed. Bite the bullet, then. "Is something wrong?" she asked, meeting his surprised gaze when he looked around this time.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant. What makes you-"

"You're not talking to me," she said bluntly. "You never _not_ talk to me."

He grimaced, sinking lower in the passenger seat. "My apologies, Lieutenant, I'm being poor company today."

"Did I do something?"

Ichabod blinked once, and then twice, and then sat up straight again. "No, I can assure you, it's nothing by design of your doing. You're only good company, as per the usual."

"Then, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing of consequence," Ichabod murmured.

Abbie raised her eyebrows. "Okay, then, tell me."

"I've..." Ichabod cleared his throat softly and winced, turning back to the window. "I seem to have contracted a sore throat."

 _Well_. Whatever Abbie had been expecting - regrets about Katrina, sorrows over Henry, nightmares of Purgatory, flare-ups of culture shock, unsettled nerves over the latest case - it wasn't a _sore throat_. She laughed a little bit until Ichabod whipped his head back around to see what was so funny, and then she pressed her lips into a thin line. "Sorry, I thought... Nevermind." She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Is that why you've been draining coffee like it's going out of style?"

Ichabod nodded jerkily. "The heat helped... briefly."

"Did you take anything? The ibuprofen we got you for the first aid kit?"

"No. It's just a sore throat." Ichabod smiled wearily, looking back from the window. "I'm sure that it will be gone by tomorrow."

"If you're in pain, you take medicine. If you're sick, you take medicine."

Ichabod looked contemptuous. "We didn't have bottles of countless capsules for our ails, Miss Mills. A hot cup of tea with a generous amount of honey will suffice for me, I believe."

Abbie sighed. "Okay, whatever you say. I'll take delight in saying _I told you so_ tomorrow," she teased, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"And I shall take delight in proving that home remedies are just as effective as your store bought-" He winced, fingers flying to his throat.

"You were saying?"

Ichabod swallowed. "I'm afraid that I'm going to subside into silence now, Lieutenant."

Abbie smiled. She wasn't unsympathetic, but she couldn't fight all of his battles for him. He'd been sick once and managed more or less managed well enough (with the aid of a lot of medication, mind); she was sure that he could handle a sore throat, and when his tea and honey didn't pan out, he'd cave for the ibuprofen and be better in no time.

"Go home and sleep, Crane," she said aloud. "Take meds if you feel worse."

Ichabod nodded. "Sound advice," he said quietly.

　

 

Ichabod was coughing when Abbie let herself into the cabin the next morning. She paused in the living room, the momentary thrill of getting to gloat leaving her mind as soon as Ichabod appeared around his bedroom doorway.

"You look horrible."

Ichabod slouched against the doorway. "... I'm afraid that I'm most unwell," he said hoarsely. His voice came out scratchy, his words barely comprehendable over the roughness. "I don't know what kind of..." he trailed off to cough weakly, turning his face into his elbow. His face was screwed up in pain, eyes closed tightly.

"Okay, go sit down," Abbie ordered, dropping her things onto a pile on the floor. "Did you take _any_ medicine?"

"Yes, when you... left last night," Ichabod whispered, allowing himself to be guided back to his bed.

"You mean you didn't drink your tea?" she asked sarcastically, although she was frowning as she reached up to feel his forehead.

"... It didn't help," Ichabod said thinly. His forehead was warm. He sank onto the bed with a heavy sigh and winced as he did. "I think you had better-" He faltered in speech again, pain flashing across his face as he swallowed.

"Stop talking," Abbie continued, appealing to him instead of him appealing to her. "If your throat is hurting that bad, going to the doctor sooner might be better."

Ichabod looked up at her miserably. He looked absolutely pathetic, and Abbie felt unswerving sorrow for him even though he _was_ a grown man and _every_ person got sick throughout different parts of their lives. "I don't have a doctor," he whispered brokenly.

Abbie sighed, gripping his shoulder condescendingly. "Leave it to me, Crane. I'll work it out."

He smiled up at her weakly, but the sickness was visible in the exhaustion in his eyes and the heat radiating off his skin. "Thank you," he said, so quiet that he was almost mouthing it instead of speaking.

"Back in a minute. Relax." Abbie left him without waiting to see if he was following the order, wiggling her phone from her pocket. It wasn't as though he hadn't been competent before when he'd been sick, but that had been different, a cold. And she also hadn't been there to help take care of him, too wrapped up in her own family drama to play doctor. But if she had a sick Crane on her hands... well, needless to say, the sooner she got him to the doctor, the better.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Spes vincit thronum - Hope conquers the throne
>
>> In relation to Revelations 3:21: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne".
> 
>   
> (Hope being the key word here.)
> 
> I thought I had already written a sichabod, but apparently not asides from _Three of Four_ , and if I have, it's not prominently featured but rather a small part in a bigger fic, so I decided to write it since the muse is back! There's a bunch of sickabbie - guilty! - but not a lot of sichabod, so... huzzah!
> 
> I do not own _Sleepy Hollow_. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!


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